DATE ARCHIVES : February 2017

Honey and Smoke

Honey and Smoke

Itamar and Sarit can do no wrong can they? Not in my opinion. Honey and Smoke has everything you want from Honey and Co but  with its own twsit of a focus on the grill and the most stunning blue wall.

 

Honey and Smoke is a great place to go with friends. The set menu allows the table to share the full mezze before choosing a grill and side then dessert. It’s great value and allows you to try a wide selection of dishes.  We started the evening with drinks. Pomegranate Bellini to be precise, well you have to really don’t you?

And the the mezze arrived. Wow! The finest looking range of dishes I have seen in a long time. What I particularly love about Itamar and Sarit’s cooking is the attention they give to every element, particularly every single vegetable. The burnt celeriac with urfa chilli butter, sour cream and chives was a particular favourite of the table. I love celeriac but the flavour in this dish was off the chart. It’s a work of magic. It must be.

The other mezze dishes were:

msabaha: chickpeas cooked over night, Turkish pepper and garlic sauce
Winter tomatoes and citrus salad
Charred pears with almond tahini and raw honey
Warm goats cheese, red onion, walnut and pomegranate
Falafel and tahini
Cauliflower with homemade amba and tahini
Moroccan sourdough
Baba ganoush

I’m not always a fan of fruit in savoury dishes but here they get it right every time. The amba (mango pickle) accompanying the cauliflower was sublime. Everything was perfectly balanced.  The baba ganoush was the the most flavoursome I’ve ever tried. The Moroccan sourdough was delicious.

Following our mezze we moved on to our grill choices.
We had Cornish hake kofta with lemon and herbs, matbucha sauce

And Hamama – pigeon with sweet onion, pine nuts and sultanas as they do in ‘Philadelphia’ restaurant East Jerusalem.

The hake kofta was bursting with flavour. The matbucha sauce of tomato, garlic and peppers was a great accompaniment. The pigeon although it looked simple on the plate came alive with the spicing and flavours of the onion, pine nuts and sultanas.

We choose sides of Sweet potato in embers, almonds, date honey and spring onions and M’jadra, lentil rice with cumin and caramelised onions.

These worked really well with our choices from the grill and I’m going to have to buy some date honey otherwise my sweet potato will always feel like it’s lacking from now on.

It was surprising really that we had room for dessert but I knew that Mr F would refuse to leave until cheesecake was consumed. Given that it is the same as the one at Honey and Co I need not tell you it was perfect as ever.

I chose warm chestnut cake with salted caramel and sour cream. This was a great choice for the end of the meal. The cake was beautifully light and the sour cream cut through the rich salted caramel sauce (which I had to resist just drinking from the jug)

I loved Honey and Smoke, I think venue wise the intimacy of Honey and Co has the edge but the food: stunning as ever.

Aulis at Fera, Claridges

Aulis at Fera, Claridges

Have you ever exclaimed ‘How on earth do they do that’ whilst eating stunning food in a restaurant? Yep me too. Often when we eat out at places where chefs are at the top of their game I spend the evening not only enjoying every morsel of food but racking my brains trying to work out how it was achieved. I love the mystery and intrigue of well crafted food.

For Mr F’s birthday I decided to plan a special surprise. Mr F loves Simon Rogan’s philosophy of food and we still talk about the meal we had at Fera in 2014! Rather than book the same again I planned a special treat and booked in to Aulis, the development kitchen of Fera. This time not only would we eat skilfully crafted food but we would see it being cooked right in front of us.

We arrived and enjoyed a glass of Davenport at the bar. I mean why wouldn’t you? It’s a special occasion after all. I’d forgotten how stunning the dining room of Claridges is. The Art Deco design mixed with Simon Rogan’s ‘natural’ look is a sight to behold.

Once the other 4 guests arrived ( Aulis can only seat 6 people) we were guided through the working kitchen to the Aulis test kitchen. Just wasking through a bustling kitchen was excitement for me. I wanted to break free from the group and explore!

Our chefs for the evening explained how Aulis is used as a development kitchen and then got to work preparing the first of our dishes. The evening was  typical of Rogan’s style  with snacks, starters, fish, meat and desserts coming together to create a diverse tasting menu. It was fascinating watching the chefs at work, being able to ask questions about the ingredients and processes as well as having conversations with the chefs and other dining guests about the restaurant, food and life in general. We were completely immersed in a food bubble and fascinated by the range of kitchen technology on show.

The dishes:
Our first snack was buckwheat tart, mylar, almond, blackcurrant. I’ve never had mylar prawns before and they were wonderfully sweet alongside the sharpness of the blackcurrant.

Our second snack of Seaweed wafer, bergamot, smoked eel was a particular favourite of mine with the smoked eel really celebrated in the dish.

Next we had Goats cheese, Jerusalem artichoke, stout in a ceramic egg. I’m a huge fan of Jerusalem artichoke and this dish was bursting with flavour. The twice dehydrated artichoke crumb that topped the egg added a lovely texture to the dish.

The next dish was really creatively presented with raw scallop, barley koji, buttermilk on a ceramic dish with a red chicory and roe dish hidden underneath. It was fascinating to chat to the chef about the process of making the barley Koji and how this was used to marinade the Isle of Mull scallops.

The celeriac, cured yolk, creme fraiche taco style dish was one of my favourites of the evening. Surprising as it was one of the simpler dishes but the flavour and different textures of celeriac were delicious and the grated cured egg yolk added another dimension.

The Portland crab, oyster, carrots, black garlic, burnt chives was fascinating to watch being put together. The crab was delicious and the carrot juice consommé, made from barbecued carrots was a revelation.

The torched deer, semi dried beetroot, lovage dish was Mr F’s favourite of the evening. The saddle of roe deer was blowtorched to ensure it was still rare in the middle.

The mushroom, whey sauce, calcot onion, truffle was a fascinating dish. The Calcott onions were barbecued on the big green egg and the savoury mushroom custard was sublime. The addition of a little winter truffle really brought this dish to life.

For the monkfish, brown butter, baby leeks, coastal herbs dish the monkfish was cooked on the bone and the butter had some marmite added. The parsnip purée was the smoothest and silkiest purée I’ve had and added a lovely richness to the dish.

The lamb saddle, chervil root, quinoa, cocoa nibs used Cornish lamb and was served with a chervil root purée that had three types of quinoa running through it giving a lovely crunch to the dish. The 100% chocolate in the sauce gave a lovely richness and the barbecued white kale finished the dish beautifully.

For the last three dishes we moved to desserts.
The first of forced rhubarb, honeycomb, sheep’s yoghurt, rose looked fascinating. The large piece of what looked like white chocolate was actually aerated frozen sheep’s yoghurt and much lighter than expected and it was great to see Yorkshire forced rhubarb on the menu.

The chocolate, sweet clover, Jerusalem artichoke, earl grey dish was the biggest surprise of the evening and the flavour of the Jerusalem artichoke worked beautifully.

Our final dish of Goldrush (Apple), caramel, hazelnut was accompanied by coffee prepared and served by a coffee sommelier in front of us. Served without milk it was interesting to taste the fruit notes in the coffee accompanying the apple ‘snack’

Being so immersed in the preparation, the ingredients and plating of the food really made us appreciate the skill and creativity of the Fera, even more that we had appreciated already. This was a unique experience, not one you would be able to do often, but definitely worth every penny. The memories of the evening will certainly last a long time.

(By the way if you go, make sure you visit the toilets. A thing of beauty. It’s not often I say that in a food blog but well, its good advice on this occasion.)

Gin and Food Pairings with Sara Danesin and Still and Heart

Gin and Food Pairings with Sara Danesin and Still and Heart

You’ve probably worked out by now that I love gin and I love food. However I have never thought of having the two together. Gin is something I normally enjoy as a pre dinner drink, a way to mark the beginning of a great evening. So I was really intrigued when Sara Danesin joined up with Catherine and Claire of Still and Heart to run Gin tastings that pair the gin and garnishes with food. The evening was a complete revelation to me and opened up so many possibilities for expanding my gin collection!
The evenings are a relaxed affair at the home of Sara Danesin (where she runs her supper club) and led by Still and Heart with fun and flair.

The theme of the evening was Scottish Gins, a nod to Burns Night and we started the evening off with a drink of Strathearn heather rose gin with prosecco and a quiz about the history of gin. As a Northern Irish girl I was rather surprised to learn that William of Orange was significant in the the growth of gin in the late 1600s.

After the quiz and a fantastic overview of the history of gin we had our first gin: Makars gin (Gaelic for poet) with a garnish of green chilli and a mixer of Doctor Polidori’s cucumber tonic. Sara paired this with heritage sourdough topped with a ‘jam’ made from Ndjua (Calabrian) sausage tomatoes coriander and fennel seeds and some halloumi. The spiciness of the food went really well with the strong juniper hit and spiciness of the gin.

Our second gin was a Rock Rose navy strength gin from Caithness that had a garnish of mint and a mixer of Rocquette cider. Sara paired this with a wood pigeon carpaccio and horseradish mayonnaise on sourdough. A perfect accompaniment for this time of year.

Our third gin was Lassie’s toast by Dunnel Bay distillery, the same distillery that makes Rock Rose. This gin specifically designed for women at the end of Burn’s night, is based on a Moorland tea recipe and has already sold out. I’ll certainly be looking out for it when they release it again as this was a favourite for me. The gin had a garnish of thyme and Sara paired it with haggis croquettes and Dijon mayo. The croquettes were simply out of this world. I could have eaten a bowl full.

Our last gin of the night was Persie Old Tom gin from Perthshire that Sara paired with Bakewell tart. A great way to end the tastings.

Following the tastings everyone was given the option to have a long drink and I chose to have Whittakers pink peculier with hibiscus and pink peppercorns, on Sara’s recommendation. Wow! What a gin. I’ll be ordering a bottle. Still and Heart bring a great selection of gins alongside the ones that are a focus of the tastings and are great at recommending things to try to expand your range of gins. What they don’t know about gin isn’t worth knowing!

The partnership between Sara and Still and Heart is a fantastic opportunity not only to learn more about gin but also a way to experiment with flavours. I’d highly recommend booking yourself in to one of the evenings this year and bring a few friends as it’s a great night out!